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What apps have you tried to "de-google" yourself? (reddthat.com)

submitted 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) by pleasestopasking@reddthat.com to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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Right now a lot of us are trying to divest and diversify from having our entire lives on Google both because of the way Google spends its money and the long-standing privacy concerns seeming a bit more scary now.

What services have you switched to and what has your experience been? What do you like, what don't you like, would you recommend them?

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[–] Frenchys_prospecting@aussie.zone 4 points 4 months ago (5 children)

I am absolutely dumb with this stuff so I have one question: how do I get all of my photos off Google cloud? That's the only thing stopping me from shitting it down.

I also have a google pixel phone but that will be destroyed once my contract is up and I can afford something not google related

[–] pineapplelover@lemm.ee 2 points 4 months ago

I know there are more options out there but what I have is a synology nas.

I self host the nas at home and I can still access the photos and stuff everywhere I go.

I chose synology because even though its proprietary and a little overpriced, at the time, I was short on time to learn the inner workings of free operating systems and setting up all the certificates, ddns, ports, etc.

Ofc there are also other cloud providers as well, but I use the synology for jellyfin so I killed 2 birds with one stone.

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[–] pleasestopasking@reddthat.com 3 points 4 months ago

Here's my list:

Proton Mail: super painless to migrate over and a very similar user experience. Feels good knowing that Google can't read my emails and that they can't be subpoenaed by our insane government. Highly recommend. There's a free plan that offers 1GB of storage but I went straight to a paid account so I can't speak to that.
Proton Pass: LOVE this. It was easy to import my passwords from LastPass and Google. The best feature is the "hide my email alias" which on my plan I can make unlimited ones. It's basically making an anonymous throwaway email that automatically forwards to your inbox. If you start getting junk mail you can see who sold your address, but also with one click you can delete it if it gets compromised. It's basically the equivalent of making a bunch of different Google accounts but way easier.
Proton Drive: It came with my subscription but I haven't gotten that deep into it yet. It has a Docs alternative but not Sheets which I use a lot, so I'm hoping they develop something like that. Otherwise like a lot like drive. It's technically a photo backup too but the interface is trash (see next item). My goal is to get enough transferred that I can cancel my Google One subscription and maybe just use that for Sheets as needed.
Ente Photos: Cloud-based photo backup. I'm slowly getting my photos transferred over but it seems to be pretty user friendly. It has some but not all of the features of Google Photos, like organizing by faces.
Brave Search: They have a browser too but I'm just using the search in Firefox at the moment. I like that it's not based on Google's index but it sometimes means the results are not quite as good. Honestly for the payoff of not being algorithmed to death I'm fine with that.

[–] Matriks404@lemmy.world 3 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

The problem with Google services is that they will be probably one of the last ones (from big tech companies) I will stop using. I wanted to switch to Proton this year, but there has been some controversy of its CEO supporting Trump...

Edit: Removed unrelated paragraph.

[–] DrainedOctagon@lemmygrad.ml 2 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Google's CEO literally showed up to Trump's inauguration and pretty sure even paid millions or billions. So if you're not using Proton because their CEO made a tweet supporting Trump, then Google should probably be one of the first companies that you must boycott, in my opinion.

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[–] kaerypheur@lemmy.world 2 points 4 months ago

I tried to minimize my dependency on Google by signing up for various email services like Petal Mail by Huawei, Proton Mail, and Yandex Mail. I also tried to find smartphones that don't have Google by default, such as Murena smartphones and Huawei smartphones. But it seems like it's too late to look for those gems without Google because I have so many apps that I bought on Google, amounting to around five digits in Malaysian Ringgit, which is not cheap. So I think I'll stay with Google for now, sadly.

[–] jlow@beehaw.org 2 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

https://cartes.app/ is a new kid on the block to replaces Gmaps, looks very cool bit is also very alpha atm. But I'll keep checking it, it has some very cool features already (French only atm which I don't speak at all but it's still super usable.)

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